Speaker for the Diodes

I've been back to the
pharmacy that gave me the wrong drug, and a different pharmacist was on
duty. He checked the computer, and the correct drug was listed for me there,
Ultram ER, and he agreed that the [generic] Ultracet was not what I had been
prescribed. It only took him a minute or two to find out that Ultram ER is
not covered by the state pharmacy assistance plan, as opposed to the thirty
minutes it took to find out that the wrong drug was covered last
night (which makes me just a wee bit suspicious of that whole thirty-minute
effort, wondering whether somebody was playing a game to see what they could
get reimbursed for that I wouldn't notice -- or maybe it was just a typo
along the line ... am I being paranoid? I wish I could've seen the computer
screen last night). But apparently they can't just hand me back the slip
of paper I'd brought in, to fill sometime when I come up with the $114 it'll
cost, so it'll be filled and just sit behind the counter until the day I
walk in with $114 and say, "You've got a prescription waiting for me since
early February ..."

This pharmacist did try (repeatedly) to tell me to just ask the doctor
to write me a new prescription for regular Ultram, since "it's the same
stuff, just not extended release" (exactly -- and what I've been
asking for for years is just that: extended-release tramadol) so I should
just get the cheaper stuff, which is covered. Well duh, I already have a
prescription for ordinary tramadol to take as needed during the day; this
was to solve the problem of being woken up by pain when the Ultram wears off
before I've slept long enough. If the ER version were covered by my
pharmacy assistance -- the very question I went in with yesterday at the
start of this mess -- I'd definitely want it. I still want it, but just
don't know when I'll be able to pay for it, so "is it worth it?" is a valid
question, yes, but telling me to get the rheumatologist to change it to
what I've already got (the rheumatologist did also write me a prescription
for normal Ultram taken a little more often than I've been taking it now,
as well as the Ultram ER one) isn't helpful ... and basically just pisses
me off.

There's a chance that I won't find the Ultram ER useful after all,
that my other sleep problems may wind up waking me about as often, or
that trickling into my bloodstream gradually it might not hit useful
concentrations for me, but I won't know that until I've been able to
do the experiment. I'm not just being manipulated by advertising to
believe that The Newest And Most Hyped Version must be the best, and
ignorant of the usefulness of the cheaper version; I was asking for this
drug a long time before it finally came on the market, and had investigated
whether it was feasible to concoct a delayed-release coating for the
normal tablets in my kitchen because the manufactured extended-release
version didn't exist yet. I don't need to be told about the existence
or ordinary tramadol; I need to know whether or not I can afford to fill
this particular prescription. Grrrr.

So, obviously, this has all put me in a ranty mood. (And here's this
convenient ranting-space on the web...) And further complicating the
financial question, now that I know the price of a month worth of
Ultram ER (not that I've gone comparison shpopping yet, but this gives
me an idea) is that I won't know how much the pain management center
I'm being referred to will cost until they call me to schedule an
appointment.